How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships. Leil Lowndes

      Have you ever admired those successful people who seem to have it all? You see them chatting confidently at business meetings, comfortably at social parties. They’re the ones with the best jobs, the nicest spouses, the coolest friends, the biggest bank accounts, the most fashionable postcodes.

      But wait a minute! A lot of them aren’t cleverer than you. They’re not more educated than you. They’re not even better looking! So what is it? (Some people suspect they inherited it. Others say they married it, or were just plain lucky. Tell them to think again.) What it boils down to is their more skilful way of dealing with fellow human beings.

      You see, nobody gets to the top alone. Over the years, people who seem to ‘have it all’ have captured the hearts and conquered the minds of hundreds of others who helped boost them, rung by rung, to the top of whatever corporate or social ladder they chose.

      Wannabes wandering around at the foot of the ladder often gaze up and complain that the Big Boys and Big Girls at the top are snobs. When Big Players don’t give them their friendship, love, or business, they call them ‘cliquish’ or accuse them of belonging to an ‘old-boy network.’ Some grumble they hit their heads against a ‘glass ceiling.’

      The complaining Little Leaguers never realize the rejection was their own fault. They’ll never know they blew the affair, the friendship, or the deal due to their own communications fumbles. Why don’t they see it? Because some of the moves Big Winners make are so smooth, so subtle, it takes another Big Winner to recognize them.

      The old boys – in the days when top management was, unfortunately, mainly old boys – complimented each other by saying, ‘Buddy, you ain’t no accident.’ They bestowed this slang tribute with a tinge of jealousy when one old boy saw some sensitive act the other had executed.

      Indeed, today the old (and not so old) boys and girls who run our country, our corporations, and our arts ‘ain’t no accident.’ Each has a bag of tricks, a magic, a Midas touch that turns everything they do into success.

      What’s in their bag of tricks? You’ll find a lot of things: There’s a substance that solidifies friendships, a wizardry that wins minds, and a magic that makes people fall in love with them. There’s also a quality that makes bosses hire and then promote, a characteristic that keeps clients coming back, and an asset that makes customers buy from them and not the competition. We all have a few of those tricks in our bags, some more than others. Those with a whole lot of them are Big Winners in life. How to Talk to Anyone gives you ninety-two of these little tricks used by Big Winners so you, too, can play the game to perfection and get whatever you want in life.

      How the techniques were developed

      Many years ago, a drama teacher, exasperated at my bad acting in a college play, shouted, ‘No! No! Your body is belying your words. Every tiny movement, every body position,’ he howled, ‘divulges your private thoughts. Your face can make seven thousand different expressions, and each exposes precisely who you are and what you are thinking at any particular moment.’ Then he said something I’ll never forget: ‘And your body! The way you move is your autobiography in motion.’

      How right he was! On the stage of real life, every physical move you make subliminally tells everyone in eyeshot the story of your life. Dogs hear sounds our ears can’t detect. Bats see shapes in the darkness that elude our eyes. And people make moves that are beneath human consciousness but have tremendous power to attract or repel. Every smile, every frown, every syllable you utter, every arbitrary choice of word that passes between your lips, can draw others toward you, or make them want to run away.

      Men, did your gut feeling ever tell you to jump ship on a deal? Women, did your women’s intuition make you accept or reject an offer? On a conscious level, we may not be aware of what the hunch is. But like the ear of the dog or the eye of the bat, the elements that make up subliminal sentiments are very real.

      Imagine, please, two humans in a complex box wired with circuits to record all the signals flowing between the two.